Confirmation: Is it for me?
More than a few folks have asked me, “Do I need to be confirmed?”
The short answer is no. You don’t need to be confirmed. Jesus never said a word about confirmation. Confirmation doesn’t accomplish, secure, guarantee, or otherwise bolster your salvation. As far as I know, no one’s ever depicted St. Peter standing at the pearly gates with the churches’ confirmation rosters to determine who’s in and who’s out.
But here’s why you might want to be confirmed. Confirmation is a chance for you, as a mature, cognizant, decision-making person, to make a public profession of your faith in Jesus Christ and your decision to live out that faith in the context of this church community. For those of us who were baptized as infants or young children, our parents made promises on our behalf at our baptism—promises to renounce evil, to accept Christ as their savior, and to follow and obey him. Confirmation is our opportunity to take on those promises, and the responsibilities they entail, for ourselves. For those who were baptized as adults (or older children), confirmation is a time to reaffirm your faith and the commitment to the promises you made at your baptism.
And for all of us, through confirmation we are strengthened and empowered by the Holy Spirit to use our gifts for the building of God’s Kingdom. As part of confirmation, the bishop lays hands on you and prays for you. (You can read the prayers that he’ll use on page 418 in the Book of Common Prayer.) There’s nothing magic about this act. But it is one of the mysterious ways that God chooses to fill us with his grace. While confirmation isn’t mentioned explicitly in Scripture, it does have its roots there. For example, in Acts 8:14-17, the apostles Peter and John go to a group of newly baptized converts and lay hands on them, and they receive the Holy Spirit for the first time.
So, if you have never been confirmed in any denomination, but you are a baptized Christian and you feel like you might want to take this next step in your faith journey, pray about it. Ask God if he is calling you to this step of declaring your faith and to being strengthened to live out that faith as a part of Restoration Anglican Church.
What if you have been confirmed in another denomination? The answer is a little complicated. If you were confirmed in a denomination that has confirmation by bishops (in addition to Anglican, this usually means Lutheran and Catholic), then your confirmation transfers to the Anglican church; you don’t need to be confirmed again, and you will be “received” by the bishop into the Anglican church. If you were confirmed in another denomination, you do need to be confirmed by our bishop. (This was the case with me: I’d been confirmed in the Methodist church as a teenager, but then was confirmed by Bishop Bena as part of my commitment to the Anglican church.)
And if you’ve been confirmed in The Episcopal Church, or CANA, or another Anglican body, you don’t need to be confirmed or received… but the bishop will be happy to pray a prayer of “reaffirmation” for you when he is here!
Thoroughly confused? Feel free to ask questions and comment below; I’ll do my best to answer. And take a look at the service of confirmation in the BCP (pp. 412-419)—you’ll learn a lot about what confirmation is and why we do it!
March 19, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
This is great Erin. Thanks for spelling it out so clearly for us.
March 20, 2009 @ 7:16 am
Thanks Erin. Good to know you were raised in another denomination and went through this process. As someone currently confirmed in the Presbyterian church, this will be a good opportunity for me to reaffirm my faith in Jesus and commitment to RAC.
March 22, 2009 @ 9:24 am
Thanks for that explanation. My question is do you have to be confirmed in order to be a member of RAC? And does confirmation confer membership? What is membership in CANA or is that the same thing as confirmation? Does current membership in the PCA (where there is no confirmation per se) count for anything? I’m not opposed to undergoing confirmation but not quite clear on the lingo.
At any rate, it sounds like fun! 😉
March 22, 2009 @ 2:24 pm
Great questions, Mary Ann. The short answer is that no, you don’t need to be confirmed to be a member of Restoration. The requirements for membership are that you be a baptized and believing Christian; that you are giving of your time, talent, and treasure to Restoration; and that you are an active participant in a small group. The slightly more complicated answer is that there are a few forms of leadership in the church that -do- require you to be confirmed: being a member of the vestry (when we form one); serving as a representative from RAC to wider Anglican synods, conferences, etc; and being ordained. (These are CANA’s rules, by the way.) So if you foresee being interested in serving in any of those capacities, then you would need to be confirmed.
Your membership in the PCA “counts” as your having been part of a faithful, committed faith community… But it doesn’t transfer over to the Anglican church in relation to confirmation. Whether or not you are confirmed at RAC, if you choose to become a member, there will be a bit of a paperwork process whereby you’ll request that your church membership be transferred from your PCA church to RAC. We’re going to invite all who want to be RAC members to do that process in May, in anticipation of “formally” receiving mbmbers on Pentecost (May 31). So regardless of whether you choose to be confirmed, you don’t have to worry about that part yet.
Hope that helps! If I didn’t answer your question, or this isn’t clear, please ask again!
February 3, 2010 @ 7:31 pm
Good job in getting the essentials across. One minor item you might want to erase the (when we form one) about the vestry.
Bob